


Wizengamot Administration Services

by under_that_sun



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU - alternate universe, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Hogwarts, Tom Riddle is named Gaunt, lots of fluff, there was no Dark Lord Voldemort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 01:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9050122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/under_that_sun/pseuds/under_that_sun
Summary: Tom became a politician rather than a Dark Lord, but still has small Dark, more underground following. Harry is a new intern in the Ministry who captures Tom's eye.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leontina (Leontina)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leontina/gifts).



> This story is a tomarrysecretsanta gift for @asexualsiriusblack at tumblr (Leontina on AO3), Happy Christmas and I hope you enjoy this, I surely enjoyed writing this! ^-^

_**Wizengamot Administration Services** _

The Floo network flashes green and a figure clad in dark green robes stumbles out of it. Hair dishevelled, he straightens himself, fixes his glasses, brushes hand through the robes to fix the creases.

Green eyes quickly scan the Ministry auditorium, the place was half empty, few figures rushing through it, a couple of people already in line by the wand check point, for a visit in the ministry. Harry rushes to the elevator to get to the level two – The Department of Magical Law Reinforcement.

Being on the verge of lateness wasn't good in the first week of you job, so Harry rushed through the corridor passing various doors to offices and other rooms of Auror Headquarters. Almost at the end of the corridor there were two doors at both sides. The two looked the same – simple wooden doors with minimal carvings on them.

The one on the left lead to the employee room which was connected to a storage room which also worked as an archive for documents the Wizengamot Administration Services had to keep, but didn't use.

On the right was the door leading to the offices themselves, Harry quickly went through them, rushed to his seat putting his satchel on it, brushing a hand though the messy hair and heading for one of the smaller rooms that were situated on the sides of the big area where interns and low ranking members of WAS had their desks.

The green eyed man entered one of the bigger offices, stopping right in front of the desk, his face impassive and professional. “What work do you have for me today, Mr Dedworth?”

The old, a bit balding man with longish black hair and a bit of an issue with weight at the area of his stomach, looked up from his desk, took off his reading glasses and focused his beady eyes on the youth in front of him. “Mr Potter, today you need to find these documents in the archive.” The man said as he extended a scroll of parchment. “I believe you still remember how to use it, right?”

Harry nodded at the stern man taking the offered scroll feeling a bit queasy in the stomach, this was first job at WAS that he had to do on his own without any supervision. “What I should do with them once I find them?”

The old man answers while putting his glasses back on. “The man who asked for them will come over tomorrow at noon, you will give them to him then, I doubt you will finish before that, but if you do, come to the office.”

Seeing as his superior was clearly dismissing him Harry nodded and left the office. He collapsed on the chair by his desk and unrolled the parchment. A groan left his lips after he saw the long list on it. This will most definitely take a while.

The archive WAS took care of was quite wide, the documents there dated back to the very beginning of Wizengamot in 1544. Harry's eyes bore into the rows of bookshelves going further and further to the end of the room. Every bookshelf was a year, on it were expanded boxes of every month. That was the only classification the archive had. The green eyed teenager hasn't been to the archive much yet, so he set through one of the two rows the room had getting himself acquaintance with the layout, he had a feeling he will be spending a lot of time here.

*\\(-II-)/*

Tom walks in the Wizengamot Administration Service office and stops by the first desk he sees. “Excuse me, I came here to take the copies from archives I ordered yesterday?”

The middle aged witch looks up at him, blinks for a moment of confusion and then nods. “You should go to that desk.” She says while pointing at a desk a bit farther into the room, towards the middle.

The lord walks to it, but can see no one around it. The desk itself is a slight mess, a couple of quills put messily by an open ink bottle, the stack of sheets of parchment isn't as neatly stacked as he's used to. There's also quite a stack of white bindings with DMLE logo in the middle of their cover and from experience Tom knows that it's the copies of the documents he asked for.

He stares at it for a moment wondering he should just take it and go, it's quite impolite that no one is here to give it to him, but it's so trivial Tom isn't bothered by it. But before he can take the stack the door he just walked through opens distracting the lord from it. He turns around and sees a young man rushing through.

The man stop for a second as their eyes meet and then he puts on apologetic look as he rushes right to the desk Tom is standing by.

With closer inspection the young man look more like a boy still, someone who finished their Hogwarts' education not that long ago. The pale face is flushed as he stops at the other side of the desk. “I'm sorry Mr Gaunt for being late, I was just looking for the last documents on your list.” He says as he shows the stack of binders in his hand.

He puts the stack next to the other and both seem to be almost equal in height, Tom groans internally, so many useless documents he will have to go through to see if they have even a drop of information he needs. He has experience with these things, it's not the first time he had requested old transcripts from Wizengamot sessions on particular topics. The thing was that the people who would usually did the search would either basically take random transcripts, or would find only those that had that specific problem in their titles.

Both usually didn't end up what he was looking for, but he preferred second as it contained at least some information. This new guy seemed to be the first type. Tom watches as the boy takes out his wand, conjures a small box, expands it, puts a feather light charm on it, puts all bindings in it, then continues to shrink it into a match box size and extends it to Tom. “Here you go, Mr Gaunt.”

At least the boy was smart enough to take care of the transportation, some would just extend the stack to him, like he was some plebeian who will carry bindings to his office, like they weren't wizards or something, truly, maybe he still had hope.

“Thank you.” Tom says with a nod, he really wasn't looking forward through going through these useless documents, but he had to anyway, sometimes one or two did turn out to be what he needed, so he continued on with the practise.

It's not until more than three hours later that lord Gaunt finally takes out the bindings and starts going through them – he really wasn't looking forward to the job. He takes the first transcript and starts reading, halfway through it his eyebrows rise and he stops reading.

This had been exactly what he was looking for. Tom takes out another binding and starts skimming through it looking for- and there it was again, a small transcription about a case of goblins bringing weapons into the Ministry, those little buggers liked to do that.

Surely, this couldn't be a coincidence? Another binding was opened, another quick skim through it revealed it to be about another topic he requested – centaurs suing wizards for the magical creature remains they harvested in centaur territory. Did all of them contain cases he needed? Could the archive have finally gotten a new sorting system?

That couldn't be it, he would have heard about it, the archive had been in the same space ever since the Wizengamot had started operating as part of the Ministry, it hadn't changed besides being expanded every year for new documents...

It was one of those very infuriating things about Ministry Tom abhorred – how stagnant it was and how slowly it changed even on it's most backward ways that everyone knows are too outdated. That was part of why Lord Gaunt was so passionate in Wizengamot and why most of his decisions were based on old documents.

It was the best way to show other members how making the same decision over and over again changed nothing and that one decision lead to better results that the other. It was working quite well, but unfortunately for him, to do that he needed to do a lot of research, way too much for his liking. Don't get him wrong, secretly Tom was a scholar, but the thing with legal documents wasn't what his scholar mind liked the most, but he made himself deal with it.

Glancing at the binders and how efficiently he had been going through them Tom smiled, he would have to thank the person who gathered them all for him, ask them how they found all the documents, maybe suggest to implement it as a new archiving system?

Tom was quite curious to find out how they did it, maybe he would even be able to show his gratitude by passing some good words about them.

*\\(-II-)/*

Harry comes to work, sees a list on his table and groans. He knows what it means, he knows he's gonna hate it all. He takes it to his hands nonetheless, reads through it; silently wonders why the topics of Wizengamot cases sound so silly and takes off to the damned archive once again.

He got the last and his first assignment of collecting documents only last week and now he's off doing it again. Harry had a feeling he might be doing this often, this was the hard fate of being an intern in one of the most boring department sections in the Ministry - Wizengamot Administration Services. Even the name didn't bring up much interest, well, at least it paid well and had very specific working hours that didn't need too many overtime. He was very glad the services worked only for Wizengamot and not the whole Ministry, otherwise the workload would be crazy.

And while taking care of parchment, ink, quills and other similar accessories needed for sessions were Harry's current job, he knew there was a bit more interesting work ahead in his career. People in higher positions took care that Wizengamot's judgements were followed, it lead to some interesting cases of were merpeople had to be escorted from the office loudly crying or a goblin with very disturbing smile and a check in hand skipped out of the office – that had been some sights.

Of course, such things weren't very common, but most definitely brightened Harry's days in the job. And while a lot of tasks weren't particularly interesting a lot of them were challenging. Like ordering five boxes of parchment to be delivered tomorrow at 6 am when the shop was almost closing and wasn't opening until 8 am.

It took some persuading, maybe some threats, but it was quite an experience. That's why even though he knew he wasn't going to like the job too much Harry still chose to be an intern in WAS.

*\\(-II-)/*

It was Wednesday evening, the Wizengamot had finished it's last session for the day and Tom was rushing to WAS before it closed for the day. No matter how important Tom was people went home as soon as their work hours were finished, he couldn't fault them, really, he'd be rather sitting in his sitting room by the fireplace than be at the Ministry at the moment.

Court had been exhausting today, he was still using some of the information he gathered from the copies he had from the archives. It meant he was once again convincing the old fools of why the should or shouldn't make some decisions. Of course, in the end he got what he wanted, but that didn't mean it was easy or that he liked the buttering up he had to do to get it.

Bureaucracy. Why was he doing it again? Yes, right, because violence meant resistance, people rarely resisted the laws, not unless they were truly nasty to some circles, but even then it wasn't always the case. For many years werewolves were treated as subclass by law until people proved they were normal humans who, you could say, got sick once a month.

The same could be said about squibs. For many centuries families would simply cast out their children just because they couldn't access their magical core. That is up to late 19th century when research showed that after three or four generations they produced a magical child if they married a muggle, if they married a fellow squib it was in two generations or in some rare cases one and if they married a wizards or witch their children were completely magical. The research had renovated the old traditions quite a bit as it also showed that squibs were created mostly if close relatives married each other.

It had stopped a lot of interbreeding at the right time and changed a lot of views on muggleborns. Not all of them were from squib lines, so even though their number had lessened in the last hundred years there were still quite a lot of them.

The last Dark Lord – Grindelwald, had not believed in this research, he gathered up people who also held the research and it's proof a conspiracy from muggle lovers and muggleborns to take over their world. He wagged a war and even though it was terrifying in the end he lost spectacularly. He was Tom's main reason why he went to Wizengamot and was moving along with his ideas through there – slowly, but secure in knowledge his work won't go to waste if someone rebels.

Thus – the torture of Wizengamot, which this time has been considerably lesser when his research was more through because his sources were better. He hopped it had not been a fluke and that he will once again receive documents with the information he needed.

Going to the WAS section Tom saw some people already leaving and really hoped the person in charge of finding his documents hadn't left yet. Stupid session dragging on longer than necessary. Tom opened the door to the office and stopped his quick pace when he saw that the person by the table he had been sent to last time was still standing by it.

Looking over them again Tom could recognize it was definitely the same boy, he had been surprised by his youthful look after all. The head full of dishevelled hair turns around as Tom steps up to the table. “I'm sorry for such late time, the session took longer than expected.”

The boy nods and smiles politely. “Of course, you're just in time Mr Gaunt.”

The stack of binders this time is much smaller, but the list had also been shorter this time. As the intern does his spells Tom rakes his gaze through the boy's form, he picks up on every detail this time, especially now that his interest has been caught.

“Would you mind answering some questions?” Tom inquires the younger male as he turns around and studies his face as surprise appears there. What a fetching shade of green; the Lord awes in his mind, such eyes could only belong to an interesting person, right? What was the boy doing in WAS?

The startled expression disappears from the raven haired man's face as he nods, slight surprise still lingering in his expression. “I can't see why not.”

Tom smiles charmingly, hoping his transition from distant to friendly won't startle the boy too much. “Well, first of all I simply need to know your name, it seems we will be meeting every time I need documents which is often and it seems simply impolite not to know your name.”

Red lips form an 'o' as understanding dawns on the smaller male's face. “Well, that is definitely something that was overlooked, my name is Harry Potter, I'm an intern in Wizengamot Administration Services and my superior is Mr Dedworth.”

The tall lord extends his hand with a smile. “Nice to work with you Mr Potter,” Tom happily notes that there is no fear or even a drop of hesitation when Harry shakes his hand, there were some dreadful rumours about him in the ministry after all... “my other equally important question is how did you find the documents I asked for? No one had ever been as good with finding them, I would be lucky to have at least several documents with the information I need. I simply must know, is there a new archiving system? Is it a spell, could this be applied to other archives?”

Tom knew his eyes were shining with interest as he spilled his thoughts out, over the years he had noticed that raw fascination and wonder was the best way to get out answers when people had a positive view of him (it was useless with those that had a fixed negative opinion about him already).

The intern flusters and smiles apologetically at the older man. “I'm sorry to say it's not a new archiving system or a spell I am unsure if it could be applied to anywhere else by anyone else but me.” Suddenly the young man looks around and pushes himself away from the desk he has been half leaning on. “The office is about to be locked, should we continue our conversation outside the office?” He offers as he summons his satchel to his hand and motions to the door.

The two leave the office and Harry continues on speaking. “What I did is a bit complicated you see, the topics you wrote down are usually based on some sort of laws. So I look up the year that law was signed and would look for first session about it close after it's acceptance. There's usually at least a couple of them. Then it depends on the topic, with the case of goblins bringing unauthorized weapons to the ministry I had to look up dates of the annual visits they do, around that date there would sometimes be a court session about it. I use this method for almost all of them.”

During their conversation the two had slowly walked through the second floor and now were at the lifts, waiting for one to stop by them. The young man had been quite invested in his explanation and noticed the fascinated expression on the Lord's face only when he turned at him once they stopped by the lift.

Tom tilted his head as the two step into the elevator. “But that way there would be only a few documents on each topic, there were at least five on them, more in some.”

Harry nods. “Yes, when I have found the most obvious ones and know for which key word it is to search I use rune glass. It's an old device, mostly not used because of how slow it is. You put a key word in it and then leave it by the documents you're searching through. One good stack probably takes an hour, so that's why it's not used widely, you have to keep coming back to it and moving it to another one, in hope someone soon finds a way to quicken it's search time.” He finishes off wistfully.

Lord Gaunt can't help, but be fascinated. “Rune glass? Why I have never heard of such thing?” He asks the younger male as they step out to the Ministry foyer and set their course to the Floo network.

“Oh, that's because it's very old, my friend found out about it in a book that listed the most useless rune inventions. She decided it was worth the little time it saved so she found where she could buy one.”

Tom blinks surprised; well, that's a book he most definitely never read, why would you read a book about most useless inventions in the first place? Never mind that, but where he could find one of those items? Maybe he could look into it's rune work and find a way to make the research more quick? Mind going mile a minute the older man didn't notice how he and his younger companion reached the fireplaces.

“Mr Gaunt?” Harry inquires as he stands by a fireplace, the other man seemed to be deep in thought, who knew such topic would interest him so much?

The man was startled from his thoughts and his eyes focused back on the smaller male. “Oh, yes, do you know where I could find this device? I believe I could make use of it personally too.”

Harry shrugs taking a fistful of floo powder. “I found mine in an antiques shop in Diagon, I think they still had several when I bought it. It was nice speaking with you.” He bows his head throwing the powder into the flames and stepping in right after.

Tom is left staring into the flames as they return to their usual orange colour; how delightful, Mr Potter seems to be quite a personality... Most useless rune inventions? Who knew, maybe he shouldn't be writing off such things as useless, maybe he could remake them more- useful...

*\\(-II-)/*

It was Saturday morning and Harry wished he could sleep in, he really wished he could, especially after yesterday, when his friends and he went out drinking in a wizarding bar celebrating the beginning of their careers. He had come back home sometime after four am and here he was now, five hours later, waking up with quite a headache so he could go to his so called 'second job'.

Could it be called work if it only took one afternoon every weekend? But his salary was quite decent. So he probably should call it that, not to forget how much time he had to spend preparing for that one afternoon...

Rolling out of the bed the Potter heir groaned and rubbed his temples and unhappily slunk to the potions cabinet he had in his bedroom. His head was killing him; opening the cabinet he took the hangover potion from it's place next to pepperup and nutrition potions. Quickly dunking the whole bottle Harry grimaced at the wretched taste and hurried to his bedside table summoning some water to the empty glass standing there and quickly washing away the lingering taste.

In a moment's notice he was feeling quite better, even though his body stayed being exhausted. Green eyes stared longing at the pepperup potion in the cabinet. Unfortunately hangover and pepperup potions didn't mix well, so he was going to continue feeling exhausted in exchange of not feeling queasy and having a headache.

Opening up the wardrobe Harry pulled out what he called 'Uniform' for his job at Hogwarts. It was acromantula silk and dragon leather duelling clothes he received as a gift for his seventeenth birthday. It was perfect for teaching DADA as it had many protective qualities so many low class curses and hexes were stopped by it.

Trekking downstairs the green eyed male ended up in the dinning room where his parents were just starting breakfast. His mother smiled at him from her seat, while his father waved at him from his spot, eyes locked onto the newspaper. Harry collapsed at the other side of his father, right in front of mum and helped himself to a big portion of scrambled eggs and couple pieces of toast.

“Did you have fun last night?” Lily asks her son, her green eyes, just a few shades different from her son's shinning at him with amusement.

“Yea, it was good to catch up.” The raven head answers sipping on the tea that appeared by his plate while silently thanking the elves.

James finally took his eyes from the newspaper, folding and putting it away. “How's your job?”

Harry shrugs, gulping down delicious bite of eggs. “It's fine, I'm still an intern so I'm still in training, the highlight of it all is probably the fact that I met Lord Gaunt.”

The Senior Auror raises an eyebrow. “I was going to ask how he ties to your job, but then I remembered you're basically Wizengamot lackeys.”

The young man sighs and rolls his eyes. “Stop being bitter dad, you can't bad mouth WAS just because I didn't want to be an auror.”

The head of the Potter family pouts and glances at his wife for support, who just ignores him and stays out of the old argument between the two men of her family. James' pout only increases when he sees he has no support from his other half and his brown eyes fall back onto his son. “But whyyyy? You're brilliant in DADA, that's why you taught your own club before you even finished Hogwarts!”

“Dad.” Harry looked into his sire's eyes with a serious expression, eyes squinting a bit as he's trying to emit his seriousness through them. “I don't want to work under you or uncle Sirius, live with it.”

James groans and sighs as he gives up the matter for the time being, Harry always gave the same answer on why he didn't apply to auror training after he finished school.

Casting a tempus Harry stood up from the table. “I need to go now, I have to transfigure some of the classroom to props for today's spells.” He kisses his mother's forehead as he leaves the room going towards the main door so he could leave the grounds and apparate to Hogsmeade.

Harry didn't need to start his class to know it will be one very awful day, at least he will see some of his friends. He should really encourage his friends to go drinking on Saturday next time..

*\\(-II-)/*

For lord Gaunt his Saturday mornings were booked for his weekly brunch at Malfoy manor with his closest friends where they would share the highlights of their week, what news they had heard, sometimes even gossip or personal news. It was quite fun and informative deal.

“-and he just squeaked, I swear, exactly like a mouse! And promised me there won't be any delay, I always knew those French always just want to swindle us out of money.” Belatrix finishes her highlight of the week and looks up to the man at the end of table. “What interesting happened to you, my lord?”

Tom puts down his cup of tea and sighs while dramatically putting a hand by his cheek and putting on a purposely over troubled face. “I met someone interesting.” A couple chuckles went over the table, what woe, their lord met someone interesting instead of having a horribly frustrating and boring week, how dare someone be interesting instead! All attention intensified as the politician spoke.

“An intern in WAS actually turned out to be more competent than the whole services combined, he actually has a brain and knows how to use it, how dare he!” Tom continues his facade, smirking inside, he loved doing these little shows where he pretended to be unhappy about something good finally happening in his week.

“He actually came up with a way how to get me the documents I need and I could probably even increase his efficiency with a little project idea his way gave me.”

Belatrix's grin was wide like a shark's. “That's simply terrible, my lord! A project idea! How could he!”

“Yes,” Tom nodded, eyes shining with mirth, “and it even involves runes! I will finally have something interesting to work on, such tragedy!”

Chuckles sounded through the room as Tom's closest enjoyed the show.

Lord Gaunt finally took the hand away fro his cheek and the predator like smirk was back on his face. “To be truthful, he really surprised me, he has a sharp mind, quick thinking and a good knowledge of laws at the very least. I am wondering what is he doing in WAS?”

“Maybe he's a muggleborn?” Barty inquired with a raised eyebrow. “Even with the prejudice getting smaller there's still plenty of talented ones that have to start from the very bottom because they don't have the money to afford shooting straight to a high position in the Ministry.”

Tom shakes his head. “His name is Harry Potter.” several eyebrows shoot up at the name, just as Tom had suspected, Potters are quite well known wizarding surname even if in last generations their family had become quite small. “I know, quite an old name, what is he doing in WAS?”

Lucius met his lord's eyes from the other end of table where he sat as the host. “Mr Potter was in the same year as Draco and they're actually on friendly terms from what I know, even though the Potter boy was in Gryffindor he wasn't one for discrimination, they had quite a rivalry in quidditch, actually. I've seen him play and I he could have gone professional.”

Tom raised an eyebrow. “The boy is one of many talents apparently. He also has quite a character, didn't get intimidated by me, but also was completely polite even while not sucking up to me.”

Belatrix cackled. “Are you officially taking interest in the boy, my lord?”

The man shrugs. “Maybe I am, I'm not sure as of yet,” dark eyes fell on the blond man across himself, “can you get me information about him, Lucius?”

Malfoy nodded. “Of course, my lord, I will gather as much as I can, I should be able to present it to you by Tuesday evening.”

The dark haired man nodded. “I will be waiting then, my friend.” He turned to the other male sitting by the table. “What good happened to you, Barty?” He inquired and the man launched off into a story.

*\\(-II-)/*

“I have to say, I'm having way too much fun with this thing.”

Harry looks up from his bowl of soup that was part of his lunch and raises a surprised eyebrow as he watches the lord of Gaunt family sitting down in the seat in front of him. The man puts something on the table and Harry smiles as he sees the rune glass.

“So they did have more of them?”

The dark eyed man nods. “I can't imagine why this was ever listed as a useless rune invention. The rune basics on this are quite something and making this work faster is nothing compared to that, I have no idea why the creator abandoned it before making it actually useful, it makes me flabbergasted.”

Harry shrugs. “I don't care, they sure would have made my life much easier, are you going to let it out into the market when you succeed? This will surely help out a lot of people.”

The older man shrugs, fingers playing with the glass panel. “Haven't even thought about it yet, I would have probably given my modified one to you to do my research faster and it would have ended up like that.” The man looks up from the rune glass into Harry's green eyes. “Now that you pointed it out, I could benefit from this.”

The intern blinks confused. “Why your first thought was to give it to me? If you truly modified it so the search would take just a couple of seconds you could have done the research yourself with a small, five minute visit to the archive most probably.”

Tom shrugs. “Well, first and foremost you'd need it more than I do, I have no illusion that other Wizengamot or even Ministry workers don't request file copies. Although it's not in my kind of list lengths and and topic specificness. Besides, I wouldn't want to rob you of your job. Secondly, it would serve as a thank you for giving this project to me in the first place. You have no idea how boring working with Wizengamot is.”

“Oh, that's very nice of you I guess, but I'll be fine buying it along with the masses, although it would probably be an item that could be listed as office materials – I wouldn't even need to pay for it!” Harry says with a grin and a wiggle of eyebrows as he continues slowly with his lunch, all he has left in his plate from his steak is a small mouthful of mashed potatoes.

Fingers tapped the stained glass. “Well, I haven't finished with it yet, so I can't say how it will turn out yet, but let's agree on this – when I make a faster rune glass I will trade it for yours, you can call it being a test run and that way it's not a gift.” Tom finished with a charming smile.

Harry waved his wand to his dishes, making them float to the dish disposal of the Ministry cafeteria. “Hmm, I guess that would be an agreeable deal.” He smiles at the older man who watches him stand up from his seat. “It was nice to chat with you Mr Gaunt, but it seems my lunch break is over, but I hope we will be able to talk again sometime soon.”

Tom nods from his seat. “Our meeting was truly enlightening and do call me Tom, I believe we're far past formal interactions, don't you agree?”

The young man notes the teasing tone in the older man's voice and does a half bow. “Only if Milord does the same.” He responded while slowly backing away from the table.

“Alright then, I won't be keeping you anymore, Harry.”

Harry takes it for the dismissal it is, nods his head in one last farewell, turns around and strides out of the cafeteria. The moment he turns first corner once he's out of the room he collapses by the wall, hands on his face as he takes in a deep breath. “What the fuck was that?! Why did he stride to me so casually and strike a conversation like that?!”

Harry squats down, his right side leaning onto the wall, he takes his face out of his palms and looks up. “What is he trying to do? What does he think he will get from me by being so friendly?” The raven haired male sighs and stands up from his spot, finally setting his course back to the office.

The young Potter heir knew the reputation the youngest member of Wizengamot had. He was cold and indifferent to others, he didn't take anyone's shit and had more than once proved that he was not someone to be messed with. What did that man think he will get from Harry by being so bloody weird?

There was no way Tom Gaunt was truly that fascinated by rune glass and was thankful for a challenge, was he that desperate for something fun to do? Harry couldn't really wrap his mind around it, he knew the Gaunt Lord had the Hogwarts record for finishing the school with the most O's and that everyone referred to him as a genius, but if the way to his good graces were challenges, surely, other people would have used it already?

The green eyed male sighs as he enters WAS office and pushes all suspicions and worries about lord Gaunt away from his mind as he focuses on his job, he has to put away some time to brainstorm this more. Worst comes to worst he will ask around if people (read the person he knows that might actually have contact with the lord a.k.a. Draco) know what Tom was up to...

*\\(-II-)/*

Harry was standing in front of fifty students from various houses and years. He was wearing his usual combat clothes the leather fit snugly to his his chest and legs while the silks fell over his shoulders and covered his arms and back. The leather was in dark green colour while the silk was completely black and unlike normal silk – not shiny.

He wasn't wearing any glasses as they could be a disadvantage in a fight, instead his vision was temporarily fixed by a spell that worked only for a couple of hours every day. The male knew his hair was tousled, messy locks swept backwards a little bit – the way that his bangs wouldn't fall into his eyes.

Basically everything was just like always, except for Lord Gaunt standing in the back of the class, his usually composed expression showing signs of interest. What was he doing here? Harry wondered as stared at the man for a moment, he couldn't let himself do it for longer than that, he had work to do. So the young male turned his eyes to his class and smiled at them.

“I heard there were many of you who had interest in mastering Finite Incantatem, so we will start from it's basics, does everybody know what the spell does-”

Over two hours later and Harry feels both magically and physically exhausted. He watches the last of his students leave the classroom and collapses on a very comfortable chair by a desk in a far corner of the room. He sighs and feels his shoulders relax, his body relaxing, when he's teaching he has to keep this image of authority among his students. It's especially important because he's still young and students can easily transition from work to friendly relationship without even noticing, so Harry has to keep his image strong to keep a good work relationship.

“You're a wonderful teacher, Harry.” A voice notes and green eyes open to see the older lord has walked up to Harry's spot across the classroom.

“Thanks, but it's very exhausting.” Harry answers brushing his hand through his hair and noticing how dark eyes follow his hand movements. Getting very self aware of his movements he puts his hands in his lap, “I was surprised to see you here.” He remarks raising an eyebrow and watching as the taller man conjured himself a chair and sat in front of him.

“I was surprised to hear you had a second job, but I have to admit this fit you quite more than working in WAS.” Tom eyes Harry's body up and down one more time as if reassuring he really did think so.

Harry rolls his eyes; he doesn't need another person in his life who thinks he's waisting his potential. “Yea, yea, but then I would have never given you the idea about rune glass and you would have continued to suffer the inadequacy of other workers there.”

The older man hums. “That is true, but I can't help, but be curious how did you end up having this particular job alongside your ministry one? Dumbledore was never one for new after-class activities, I would know, he shot down my suggestion for a debate club.”

Harry can't help, but chuckle at Gaunt's sulky expression. “Well, he suggested it to me himself so I didn't need to do any convincing. In sixth year I felt like our DADA curriculum was lacking so I started revision and practise with my friends. We tried making the teacher give us more extra hours, but he refused and it was in his rights to do so. Everyone who worked with me had at least A after end of year exams and Dumbledore noticed that. He suggested I run a kind of a tutoring club in my seventh year. I agreed, thought why not do something nice for other students while improving my own knowledge? I do enjoy DADA.”

The young man lets out a long suffering sigh. “Of course everyone who went to at least half of the sessions showed great improvements in their grades, Dumbledore was ecstatic he offered to employ me as a DADA assistant and continue my tutoring session even after I finished school. It was nice money and DADA is one of my passions, so I agreed. And here we are now.”

Tom is smirking quite amused by the story. “How interesting, I have to confess I sneaked into the school to see you teach when I heard you had a part time here, I was not disappointed. Why did you went to work in WAS instead of say, getting a Mastery in DADA if you enjoy it so much?” He inquired raising an eyebrow.

Harry ignores the older man's obvious confession of trespassing and answers the question. “Yea, sure, I like DADA, but I'm not sure if I'd enjoy it being my whole life, I didn't want to take the risk.”

Tom is about to say something else, when the classroom door opens and a head peeks in. It's a boy, obviously still a teenager, his short black hair somehow manages to stick in all sides possible and his robes show that's he's a gryffindor. He smiles as he sees the two sitting men and walks into the room in an easy stroll.

The young lord raises an eyebrow as he sees his companion smile widely and stand up from his seat. “Hey Lauren.” He says as the younger boy comes right into his arms and the two hug.

“Hey, big bro.” Comes somewhere from Potter's duelling robes and Tom remembers that Harry has a younger brother who's still in Hogwarts.

The two separate, wide smiles on their faces. “What's new?” Harry asks and Tom notes that the younger brother has brown eyes unlike his brother's green, Lauren seemed to carry Potter genes through and through, if his hair was a bit longer it would probably be the same mess as his brother's.

“Not much, Bins is still boring, runes are a pain and I still have detention during your tutoring sessions.” The two brothers chuckle at that. “I have letter for mum though.” The shorter male says as he extends an envelope to his brother.

Harry takes it and it disappears in his robes. “I will try not to forget to give it to her as soon as I'm back.”

Lauren nods and starts walking backwards. “Alright then, see you next week then, I will be waiting for updates about you know what!” He shouts just as he reaches the door.

But before he could open it the door is wide open and the headmaster is strolling in. The younger Potter nods at the white bearded man and slips out of the classroom without another word.

“Good afternoon, headmaster.” Harry greets the old man and Tom stands up from his seat, innocent expression on his face.

“Harry, Tom,” The old man returns the greetings while his eyes stay locked on the older raven head. “what are you doing in Hogwarts, dear boy?”

Lord Gaunt smiles politely. “I remember having permission to visit the Chamber of Secrets couple times per year, so I decided to make one of those time now.”

“Hmm,” Dumbledore's eyes narrow. “And you just stumbled upon Harry's classroom while on your way there?”

“Why no, I decided to use this chance to visit Harry and ask if he'd like to visit it with me, what do you say Harry?”

The young male blinks surprised. He glances at his old headmaster, sees the suspicion written on his face, he glances at Tom, sees the mischief there and really, even if the lord is faking his expression he was doing it just right, because that was exactly what intrigued Harry – mischief making. These two men must have quite disagreement though, for headmaster to show his distrust so openly, but Harry knew his headmaster, knew how much he distrusted everything Slytherin (and well, Mr Gaunt was literally a Slytherin). He had never quite like that about the school figurehead.

“Well, if I can I would be delighted, there's quite a few legends about it after all.” He answers while smiling at the dark eyes that were burning into him. Then he turns towards the grey haired wizard and smiles apologetically. “I think I will be going now headmaster, Mr Gaunt and I have plans.”

Harry gestures Tom lead the way and the two of them quickly shuffle out of the room leaving the old wizard staring stunned at the empty spots they left behind themselves. Once the door is closed behind them Harry starts grinning widely, glancing sideways at the other man, grin widening as he sees a smirk on his lips.

“Oh, his face was hilarious.” Harry breathes out still grinning. “But are you sure you want to show me the Chamber of Secrets?”

“I'm always happy to frustrate Dumbledore, it seems we have it in common. And no, I'm not worried at all.” His eyes gleam dangerously as they meet. “First of all, I somehow doubt you will show anyone where it is, secondly no one besides me can enter it. Third, if someone did try to enter it they would be destroying school so there would be someone to stop them. Worst comes to worst Agathon would eat them.” Tom winks at the last part.

Harry's face shows a hint of fear as he asks. “And, um, Agathon won't decide that I'm an intruder too and eat me?”

The older man shakes his head. “Don't worry, you're safe with me.”

Harry raises his eyebrows as they walk into second floor girl lavatory. “Don't tell me the famous, mystery shrouded Chamber of Secrets is actually a bathroom?”

A laugh echoes through the empty room and Tom smiles at the younger man. “No, it's not, but the entrance is here, quite ironic, isn't it? Just because of this it took my quite a while to find.”

“Oh,” Harry exclaims as he observes the taller man stop by one of the sinks, lean down to it and hiss something at it. Parseltongue, that explains a lot, that way no one but the Slytherin heir would be able to enter it, how unfair, but cool at the same time.

He watches as a hole appears in the spot Tom had just been leaning down to and approaches the hand extended to him. “Now what?”

“Now,” Tom says as he takes Harry's hand by the wrist and gently nudging him towards the hole, “we slide down it, you first, I will follow.”

Harry eyes the dark hole, glances at the dark eyed man and sighs. “You're lucky I am gryffindor.” He says and without another word jumps down it, Tom is barely able to release his wrist in time not to be pulled down head first with him.

Lord Gaunt stares at the hole for a moment, chuckles, hisses at the opening and jumps down himself.

Half a minute later he's standing next to the young heir as the latter looks around with interest. The anti chamber isn't anything special. It's just stone brick walls and smooth stone ground, walking further in is the interesting part and the taller man observes as the young ministry worker looks around eyes full of wonder.

Tom speculates how the boy will fair meeting Agathon, will he be afraid, will he run away screaming? Will he face him with a brave face like a typical gryffidor? He couldn't tell, Harry tended to surprise him like not many had managed before and always in a good way too.

Meanwhile green eyes wander around the corridor they're walking through, always coming back to the big door they were quickly approaching. It looked quite interesting, it had carving on it, couple of snakes curved on it and didn't seem to have any outwards handles. The moment they're in front of it, Tom hisses something once again and it slowly starts to open as snakes on it move.

The older man steps up to Harry. “Can you do my a favour and close your eyes when the door opens and not open it until I say it's okay? I don't want accidents to happen and for Agathon be fully there when you open your eyes, we want this meeting to have it's full effect after all, right?”

Harry eyes him warily, but nods and closes his eyes anyway. “I promise not to peek.” He also adds for good measure grinning even if he can't see how the older man's face looks, he assumes it must be amused, his cheekiness had been received like that so far and Harry hopes it will continue to be so.

The green eyed teen hears the doors open fully and feels Tom put hands on his shoulder and slightly push him. “Let's walk in a bit, so he can hear me and I don't need to use sonarus, the chamber is quite big.”

The younger male nods and let's himself be pushed in ears sharp for any kind of noises that could betray what kind of creature waited here.

What he hears is a series of hisses from Tom and suddenly realizes that the Slytherin's secret monster is a snake. It should have been obvious, he did talk snake language and snakes tended to listen to orders of those who spoke Parseltongue. But what snake could be big enough to be called a monster and live long enough to stay in chamber for about millennia? There were only a few Harry could think of and had a feeling it most definitely will be one of them.

A soft hissing that didn't sound like Tom's reached Harry's ears and his insides clenched in anticipation. He felt a presence loom over his shoulder as Tom leaned down to his ear. “You can open your eyes now, Harry.”

The green eyed male opens his eyes and they widen as he takes in the giant snake with yellow eyes right in front of him. “It's a basilisk.” He whispers.

*\\(-II-)/*

Tom sighs as he collapses into an armchair by the fireplace and rests his head on the comfy rest behind him.

“Was the meeting worth moving our brunch to supper?” Belatrix grins from behind her glass of wine she's sipping on her spot on the sofa near Barty while Lucius was sitting on another armchair.

“Are you kidding me?” The young lord asks. “It was more than worth it, I think I may be infatuated.” He sighs out.

Belatrix choked on her wine a has to cough a couple of times to get her breathe back, the two men had their eyes wide as they stared at their sworn lord with surprise.

“What?” Chocked out Belatrix interrupting the silence that erupted from Tom's statement.

The said lord shrugged. “How was I supposed to know that under those ministry robes he was fit and quite powerful magically? I noticed he was handsome when I took notice of him the second time we met, but I didn't realize how much until I saw him in his duelling attire. Couldn't took my eyes away from him during the whole lesson.”

The three friends glanced at each other and then back at lord Gaunt who was leaning on his arm and staring into the flames contemplating. “But my lord was always hard to win over, surely, there was more?” Lucius asks hesitantly.

Tom turns back to the three of his friends and rolls his eyes. “Of course there was more, it was all the little things too. Dumbledore of course felt my presence and came after Harry's lesson and the way Harry dismissed him and went with me to the Chamber of Secrets was simply glorious.”

Belatrix chocked again. “You brought him to the Chamber?!”

“Yes, yes I did and he loved Agathon. He was fascinated by him, had a lot of questions, Agathon was quite amused by his curiosity and fascination about a thousand year old creature.”

“So he's handsome, dissed Dumbledore and liked the giant snake and now you're infatuated.” Lucius stated with a raised eyebrow.

“He's also quite smart.” Tom added as he smirked. “We had a delightful conversation why Protego has been the most popular shielding charm in the last two hundred years. He also seems to appreciate knowledge.”

Barty chuckled. “What are you going to do about it, my lord? Have a tumble in the sheets or take him out for dinner?”

The tall man's eyes shine as he smiles. “I am more tempted towards the dinner actually, which is a rare thing, more often than not a quick tumble in the sheets is enough, but he's not just a pretty face, I guess. I hope he doesn't have anything against same sex relationships, it would be a shame.”

Beltrix grins. “Oh, he's a heir, he should look nice put into fancy robes, family magics will take care of that, especially if you would initiate courting.” She wiggles eyebrows at that.

Toms shakes his head. “Don't get ahead of yourself, I don't know how long my fascination will last, maybe one dinner will destroy it all.” He chuckles. “I first need to ask him out and for him to agree before planning anything.”

His three followers a bit more like friends laughed, cheerful mood in the air, it was rare for him to be interested in someone and it was always quite an affair, even if the bigger masses never heard about it.

*\\(-II-)/*

Three shipments of high quality parchment with Wizengamot water marks have been received, checked and unpacked, one shipment of black ink has been distributed, a shipment-

Harry looks up from writing his rapport about supply shipments when he sees a shadow fall on his desk. “Can I help you?” He asks lord Gaunt when their eyes meet and the older man doesn't speak immediately.

A playful smile, one Harry has not seen before on the taller man's face, plays on the thin lips and Harry's not sure how he should be reacting to it or what it meant to see it.

“Oh, yes, most definitely, I came here with another list and for once I came at the time you're in to give it to you directly.” He waves a parchment, Harry extends his arm to take it, but Tom simply pulls it away. “Ah, no, no, first let me finish.” Harry raises an eyebrow, but retreats his hand away, looking up at the aristocrat's face with an impassive expression.

“Firstly, I took some time to write some notes next to every topic, with the keywords I mainly need, I hope it eases your research.” Harry keeps unimpressed face while internally he's once again on a verge of panic, this man, most definitely wanted something from him and something big! He kept being nice in places where he didn't need to and Harry could bet his next wage that he had never even considered writing notes next to his request so the person in charge of finding his documents would have an easier time. What was happening here?!

The smile widens a bit, Tom, moves his head a bit sideways, his eyes trail at Harry's neck and Harry swears to gods, Tom got his flirty face on. “And secondly I was wondering if you would like to join me for a dinner some other day?”

Harry knew it! Gods damn it, what was he supposed to do now??? How does one react to this, getting asked out by a very influential person? If Tom wasn't who he was Harry would have happily agreed, the other male was attractive. But. But this was Lord Gaunt, the youngest member of Wizengamot in the last couple of centuries, a man many feared for his influence and magical prowess. And truthfully, it only made the man more hot in Harry's eyes.

Thus is why after a moment of silence the young Ministry intern nods. “I would love to, I am free on Friday if the date suits you?” His family can be horrified, his friends, disgusted, but this was Harry's choice and he felt like playing with fire and taking risks so be it.

Tom's face lit up at that acceptance. “Friday suits me too, how about seven pm I will come pick you up and we will go to the restaurant I choose together?”

Harry lets himself to send the standing man a flirty smile. “That suits me too, I live at the Potter manor, I believe you will find your way?”

Mr Gaunt nods, puts the parchment with his new list and brushes his hand through Harry's cheek. “See you in a couple of days.” He states and then he turns around and stalks out of the room. As the door closes behind him a couple of wistful sighs fall from Harry's female co-workers and they start whispering loudly. Harry ignores them for the sake of finishing his rapport, what a crazy Tuesday this turned out to be...

*\\(-II-)/*

“And you just agreed? Just like that? Without even trying to seem a bit hesitant?”

Harry rolls his eyes at Hermione's words. “I didn't shout yes as soon as he said it, I did think about what bad idea it would be before agreeing, you know.”

“And then you saw how bad it was, so you took a lot of glee in agreeing?” Asks Draco, an amused smile on his lips from where he's nursing his tea while waiting for meal to arrive.

The green eyed male rolls his eyes at his two favourite other house friends. “Ugh, I just decided I don't care what others will think and that I like the risk, it's not like he can demote me besides throwing me out of the Ministry and then I just can pursue quddicth or some career with a lot of DADA use. Besides, I don't see why he would be doing that in the first place.”

Draco shakes his head. “Oh, Harry, Harry, you innocent soul, Tom Gaunt will devour you and there will nothing left of you.”

Hermione just shakes her head. “And you agreed just for that? To mix up some trouble?”

Harry snorts. “Have you seen him? He's hot, I quite like his looks you know, and from the few interactions we had I had fun or at least wasn't bored, I really didn't see a reason to refuse.”

“Oh my gods,” Draco moans, “I know what will happen next, Mr Gaunt will fall for your charm, you two will get married and I will have to play nice with you for the rest of my life because my father's friends with Gaunt and then when the two of you will have your magical babies and I will have to be a godfather to them, prolonging me being nice to you, because no doubt, I will love your children dearly!”

Both Hermione and Harry start hysterically laughing. “Please don't paint a future like that you idiot, I'm not sure I even like Gaunt more than a casual friend who I find hot, so the whole devoted romance is still far off from being even a strand in reality.”

Draco was not amused. “You have met the man, you've seen how charming he can be, you doubt you won't fall for him if he focuses it all on you?”

Harry smirked at his friend. “Dear Draco, I'm the man that veelas have no affect on, yes, lord Gaunt is distractingly charming, but that's not enough for me. I'm not even sure what he would have to do for me to start liking him like that. I'm not one to fall in love carelessly.” He finishes rolling his eyes at his blond friend.

“Alrght, alright,” Hermione chides the two males. “let's not start on this, okay? Harry is just going on a first date with the man, very reclusive and rarely is seen in public with anyone, but his confirmed friend group kind of man, but this is a simple first date nonetheless, let's not pressure him.”

“Hermione, not you too.” Harry whines, “I don't even know why I'm friends with you, I should have had this lunch with Ron and Neville in that case they would have been just horrified about him being a Slytherin and ten years older.”

His friends laugh at him and Harry just sighs; he doesn't know why he rapports his personal life details like this to his friends, it must have been his famous gryffidor courage shining through to face all of this teasing...

*\\(-II-)/*

Harry stumbles out of the floo, his irises are blown out, he's a bit breathless as he leans onto the fireplace and carefully touches his plump, well kissed lips.

His date with Tom had been quite nice, they had nice meal, during which the conversation was used to get to know important personal details. After it they took a stroll through wizarding district in Milan – the place Tom took him for his dinner, it suddenly made sense why no one ever saw the man out, he probably never did it in Britain.

It was quite interesting, Tom also had quite a few stories to share about Milan's wizarding community history, interesting facts and how he found it. It wasn't like the conversation never fell short, it did, but they either made the silence work or would simply start a new conversation. Harry liked that Tom wasn't awkward with it, he wasn't shy, he didn't get shocked easily, so the fact that Harry could shock the older man if he really wished to, was a pleasant thing to know.

Like when after their stroll when they went to the international floo and Harry suggested their next date. Tom's eyes widened in surprise, but he had smiled nodding in agreement to the date. Then of course, he had his revenge, when he leaned down, took Harry's chin in his hand and continued to ravish Harry mouth like Tom was a starving man and Harry was a delicious dish.

It was the best kiss Harry has ever had and he would not mind a repeat. It also made him wonder of that was how Tom kissed him now, how would he be in bed. The thought made his pulse race. It also made him question if that was how he always kissed or if he had a calmer kiss too and if Harry would enjoy it as much.

The raven haired teen shook his head, it didn't matter now. It was still to be seen if their relationship would be more than a couple of dates followed by some very steamy sex.

Well, at least the last part has been cleared up to be really happening Harry thought as he finally pushed himself away from the fireplace and set towards his bedroom. The date had been much more enjoyable than he imagined it would be.

He hopped that what he thought up while they strolled around the old city would be just as interesting. Harry planed to take the man on a broom ride in a mountain region in Bulgaria. The view from up above was quite breathtaking and the green eyes male hoped that even such stoic man will be able to appreciate the view. Relaxing away from everything was something Harry valued after all.

*\\(-II-)/*

The floo flares green and Tom steps through it, his hair styled perfectly like always, he had a small smile on his lips as his eyes found Harry. The younger male stepped up to his boyfriend and pecked his lips. “I can't believe this is happening.” He says and shakes his head.

The older man smiles at his lover. “It's nothing big, you're just making a big deal out of it.”

“Tom, you're having a Yule dinner with my parents, a first dinner with them, my father will try to interrogate you about your dark following and my mum will subtly hint about your intentions towards me. Let me freak out for bit, yea?”

The dark eyed man leans down and pecks Harry's lips again, but Harry's not taking any of that, as his boyfriend is pulling away he grabs the robe lapels and pulls him down again, this time mouth open and waiting for a much deeper kiss. Tom is all but too happy to provide one, kissing the younger man was always quite an indulgence.

“Are your nerves placated now?” The taller man asks, eyebrow pulled up questioningly.

Harry bites his lip and shakes his head. “They're not, but I trust you, just don't let my father ask too many question about any dark stuff, he knows too much about the thing and he could have quite a fetching conversation with you, don't let him fool you into thinking that's him being supportive.”

“I wouldn't dream of it, Harry.” Tom says while rolling his eyes. He takes the younger man's hand. “Let's go face the show, you can't hide me here forever.”

The glare Harry sends him says 'dare me' but Tom knows better than comment on it and just pulls his lover towards the door. There were three people he was about to meet and impress, it was important to have good relationship with your future in-laws after all.

 


End file.
